At the start of February 1992, Newcastle United were facing relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history. They were also facing bankruptcy. St James’ Park had been neglected, the club’s best players had been sold.

In a daring move, Newcastle appointed Kevin Keegan as manager. Keegan, the two-time European Footballer of the Year, had played for the club between 1982 and 1984. He had been out of football since. His appointment as manager was as big a shock as when he arrived as a player.

Exactly four years after Keegan’s return, Newcastle were top of the Premiership, nine points clear of Manchester United, having played a game less.

North East sports writer MARTIN HARDY tells the story of that remarkable period in his new book, ‘Touching Distance’. He talks to all the key men in the dramatic turnaround, Keegan, Sir John Hall, Les Ferdinand, Faustino Asprilla, Philippe Albert and many more.

It is a story of hopes and dreams and a time when, for Newcastle United, anything seemed possible.

The 85th minute of Newcastle’s final home game of the 1991/92 season had passed and the club was in a relegation place. They were drawing 0–0 against Portsmouth. The last game was away at Leicester, a week later.

Tension was palpable. Sir John Hall had painted an apocalyptic picture of what relegation to the third tier of English football would mean for the club. In his view it would be all over.

In the 86th minute Ray Ranson hoisted a long, angled pass to David Kelly, who flicked the ball to Micky Quinn. Quinn hooked the ball back to Kelly.

He was less than fifteen yards from goal, at the Gallowgate End, his position strikingly similar to when Keegan had scored on his debut. The future of Newcastle United Football Club was now in his hands…

David Kelly was five when he was diagnosed with Perthes’ Disease. He fell out of a tree and broke his leg, and the reason he broke his leg was that the bone in his hip had not grown.

“I was in plaster and on crutches and in a wheelchair,” says Kelly. “It’s a disease that is still here today, you just grow out of it.

“I had a double plaster cast to the end of my foot. I had a metal bar across the middle and my dad used to carry me up the stairs. I was on crutches for years. I used to hobble around with my three legs.

“It wasn’t anything different for me. Them are the cards and you just get on with it, don’t you? I still played football.”

He played for Bartley Green Boys from when he was nine, then he went to West Bromwich Albion and was released. “They said I wasn’t good enough,” he adds. “I was devastated.” He got a job at Cadbury’s as a trolley porter in the factory and played in non-league Alvechurch’s youth team.

Kelly then had a trial at Walsall and got in. He was on £75 a week at Cadbury’s. Walsall gave him £50 a week and a bus pass.

“There was a guy at Cadbury’s called Arthur Hoey and he went, ‘You’ve got a career here for the rest of your life, son. That football thing will never catch on.’ ‘I said, ‘No, I’ve got to give it a go.’”

He scored 63 goals in 147 games for Walsall, became a Republic of Ireland international and got a move to West Ham. “I got slaughtered because I didn’t play very well,” he adds.

He was doing better at Leicester when the new manager Brian Little suggested dropping to the reserves.

“I went, ‘I ain’t happy,’ and, as I did everywhere, I said, ‘I ain’t playing reserve-team football.’ He said, ‘I’m only leaving you out for one game.’

“A week later I was still on the bench. I said, ‘Gaffer, I can’t stay here.’ He said, ‘OK, I’ve had Sunderland in for you.’

“I went to see Denis Smith at Roker Park. He was saying this and that about the club and I said to Denis, ‘I need a bit of time to think about it.’ He said, ‘This is the biggest club you’re going to play for.’

“I said, ‘I don’t deny it’s a big club, but I want to have a think about it.’ I went home. Then Brian Little told me Newcastle were in for me as well.

“I signed for Newcastle because of my Uncle Ronnie’s words. “If you can do it at Newcastle and become their number nine,’ he said, ‘they’ll never forget you.’”

“What was the club like when I joined? Oh, it was a shambles,’ he says.

Still, he was overwhelmed by the passion for the club within the city.

“Newcastle has always had this thing that the support is different,” he adds. “Until you have the time of living there or spending plenty of time there, you don’t realise. People across the UK don’t realise how big they are. I still think that sits today.

“Going and filling your car up on a Sunday morning, everyone wants to talk about the match.

“Everything changed when Kevin came in and Terry Mac was the joker and even Faz (Derek Fazackerley) was laughing with everyone. Training was quicker. The training ground was sorted out.”

Keegan, McDermott and Fazackerley. They were the three men fighting to save a football club.

Finally, the dressing room understood quite how high the stakes of the game they were playing against Portsmouth that day, 25 April 1992, actually were.

In the 86th minute, the man in the Newcastle number nine shirt, there because his Uncle Ronnie from Ireland knew what it meant, steadied himself and hit a right-footed shot.

He shot to give a club a future…

Touching Distance, published by deCourbertin books, will be published on July 30.